Effort to stall passage of bill to mandate judicial training on sexual assault may be afoot, says Senator Dalphond

Quebec Senator Pierre Dalphond says he’s concerned there may be an effort to stymie the passage of legislation aimed at ensuring judges receive sensitivity training before presiding over sexual-assault cases. A pair of hearings scheduled by the Senate Legal Affairs Committee on Wednesday and Thursday on Bill C-3, legislation that requires judges to be well versed in sexual-assault law, were cancelled at the last minute. They were rescheduled for next week. Progressive Sen. Dalphond (De Lorimier, Que.), the sponsor of the government bill, said the delay in the hearings has implications for the committee’s work—including when it can present its report to the Senate under the legislative calendar—and potentially, the bill’s passage, given there are constant rumblings of an election. “This cancellation at the last minute translates to a minimum delay of three weeks to initiate the third reading of the bill. Given the two-week Easter break starting on April 2, third reading could begin on April 20, at the earliest,” he said in a written statement to The Hill Times. He questioned the reasoning behind the cancellation—that it was because the Senate Speaker George Furey (Newfoundland and Labrador) had extended adjournment over the weekend, stretching from March 18 to 26—noting that other committees, including at the House of Commons, which is sitting, have been able to hold meetings this week. “Why impose such a delay? The Legal committee meetings could not have been cancelled for COVID-19 and health concerns alone, since four other Senate committees met this week, as well as the House of Commons and 24 of its committees,” he said. “So what is the real reason? Could it be that some Senators don’t consider the bill important enough despite unanimous support, for a second time, in the House of Commons?" The Senate committee was supposed to hold a clause-by-clause vote on the bill after the hearings, with an eye to getting the report to the Senate next week. It’s currently only scheduled to sit four days next week, from Monday through Thursday, because of the Easter holiday. Senators won’t return until potentially April 19, when the federal government’s long-awaited budget will be released. Sen. Dalphond said there could be a tight timeline for getting the bill passed, if a vote on the government's budget implementation bill, considered a confidence matter, triggers a federal election. Bill C-3 marks the third legislative effort to push for compulsory judicial training on sexual assault for federally appointed judges. In its current form, the bill seeks to amend the Judges Act to make clear that the Canadian Judicial Council, the body that oversees federal judges, can establish seminars for judges on sexual assault to stay on top of the evolving social context. Its first iteration was shepherded by then-interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose in 2017 as a private member’s bill, and though it received unanimous consent in the House, the legislation died due to procedural manoeuvring in the Senate when the 2019 election was called. Ms. Ambrose, at the time, accused some Senators from her own party of playing "political games." The government revived the legislation, introducing a similar bill in February 2020 and reintroduced it again after the House returned from prorogation in late September. That legislation also received unanimous support in the House. In an email response about whether she has concerns about its passage, Ms. Ambrose said, she still "strongly believe there are people who want this bill to die because they are protecting an institution that needs reform - the judiciary." She noted that the bill was first introduced four years ago, after the inauguration of the former U.S. president and before the #MeToo movement that has prompted a cultural reckoning over how society responds to allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct. "The fact we are still struggling to pass such a simple bill that focuses of building confidence in our justice system is appalling to me," she said. "If we refuse to support more transparency and training in our justice system for judges, sexual assault survivors will continue to see the courts as a hostile place and will continue to avoid reporting their assaults to police." Ms. Ambrose said she was notified Monday that her appearance would be cancelled. "I was told that there were COVID reasons for cancelling the committee meeting and I assumed all committees were canceled for the same reason," she said. Asked whether there were certain factions within the Senate opposed to the latest version of the bill, Sen. Dalphond declined to elaborate in an interview, but said he believes there’s “wide support” within the Senate. “This bill is really about trust in the legal system, it's about trust in the judicial system,” he said. “ preventing victims from having to go through an appeal process, to have a second trial before a different judge.” Former Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose, pictured with Justice Minister David Lametti, pictured Feb. 4, 2020, addresses reporters on the government's revival of her private member's bill to mandate judicial training on sexual-assault law. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Ms. Ambrose had been slated to testify before the committee on Wednesday; her appearance has been rescheduled for March 31. The impetus for the bill in part can be linked to high-profile rulings that drew scrutiny on judges’ understanding of the experiences of sexual-assault survivors. In 2017, for example, Halifax judge Gregory Lenehan acquitted a taxi driver accused of sexually assaulting a female passenger who was under the influence of alcohol, saying “clearly, a drunk can consent.” (A committee that reviewed complaints found his comments were “ill-advised” but did not meet the test for “for judicial misconduct,” according to CBC.) Senator Mobina Jaffer (British Columbia) of the Independent Senators Group suggested the cancellations were tied to the Senate Speaker’s move to extend the adjournment period to Friday. The Speaker has the authority to extend the period “if it is deemed that the public interest.” The pandemic has affected its sitting schedule on multiple occasions. Sen. Jaffer, chair of the committee, was unavailable for an interview, but said in an email response the plan is “study the bill” and to hold a clause-by-clause vote next week, “and report to the Senate.” “We did not sit this week because Senate was not sitting for safety reasons,” she wrote. “We will be doing all our work next week.” The hearings would have been held virtually, though some Senators can opt to convene in a committee room in Ottawa. The office of Conservative Senator Denise Batters (Saskatchewan), deputy chair of the Senate committee, in a statement, dismissed concerns that there could be an effort to hold up the bill, saying it’s “absolutely untrue.” “Senator Batters has supported this bill since it was first introduced in 2017 as Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose’s Private Member’s Bill C-337,” her office said by email. It went on to echo Sen. Jaffer’s statement that the extended adjournment affected the committee’s schedule. In a retweet of this piece, Sen. Batters pointed to a video of the Senate Committee’s meeting in May 2019, noting that “only CPC senators voted YES” on a motion to prioritize Ms. Ambrose’s bill, then C-337. “Trudeau ‘Independent’ senators (including Dalphond & Gold) voted NO” to the study, she tweeted. Senator Dalphond, a former judge at the Quebec appeals court, disputed that characterization, saying that the motion to prioritize study of the bill from the Conservatives after the committee finished its work on Bill C-75, the feds’ sweeping justice-reform legislation, was raised unexpectedly. The Senate is expected to prioritize study of government bills. He countered that at the time, it was unclear how long , saying he had proposed sitting outside the Senate’s set schedule to study Ms. Ambrose’s bill to avoid eating into the time allotted for government bills. A request for comment from Canadian Senators Group’s Larry Campbell (British Columbia), also a deputy chair of the committee, about the meeting's cancellation was not returned by deadline. Editor's note: The story has been updated to reflect the Senate is sitting four days, not three, next week. It has also been updated with comments from Ms. Ambrose and reference to a tweet from Sen. Batters. The Hill Times

Effort to stall passage of bill to mandate judicial training on sexual assault may be afoot, says Senator Dalphond

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Effort to stall passage of bill to mandate judicial training on sexual assault may be afoot, says Senator Dalphond

The cancellation of a pair of hearings at the last minute 'translates to a minimum delay of three weeks to initiate the third reading of the bill,' says Senator Pierre Dalphond, sponsor of Bill C-3, but committee leaders point to COVID-related precautions.

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